Joining a Prestigious Club

ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations

Foreword

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Research Framework

2.1 Theoretical Framework: Socialisation and Norm Diffusion

2.2 Explanatory Model

2.3 Case Selection and Methodology

2.4 Operationalisation

2.5 Data Collection

3. Understanding the Context of Cooperation

3.1 Historical and Institutional Development of the Europarties

3.2 Party Development in Post-Communist Countries

4. Finding Each Other: Process of Application and Identification

4.1 Application and Selection Process

4.2 Identifying a Suitable Europarty

5. Incentive Structures for Cooperation

5.1 Motives for the Europarties

5.2 Motives for the non-EU parties

6. Impact on Ideological Profiles

6.1 Ideological Match: Fitting into the European Party Family

6.2 Analysing the Ideological Match

7. Impact on Organisational Structure

7.1 Organisational Changes in Mother Parties, Youth and Women’s Branches

7.2 Analysing the Organisational Changes

8. Impact on Inter-Party Behaviour

8.1 Inter-Party Relationships between Sister Parties

8.2 Inter-Party Cooperation across the Europarties

8.3 Analysing the Inter-Party Behaviour

9. Conclusions

9.1 Key Empirical Findings

9.2 Comparative Analysis

9.3 Impact on the Party System

9.4 Impact on the Europarties

9.5 Limitations

9.6 Future Research Trajectories

Bibliography

Interviews

Official Documents

Party Documents

Literature

Copyright

Foreword

This book studies transnational influences on political parties. The author takes on the momentous task of studying why, how and with what effects political parties in Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Moldova) and the South Caucasus (Georgia) cooperate with Europarties.

As such, the book addresses three under-researched dimensions. First, it examines political parties in the post-Soviet countries in order to then understand the Europeanisation of political parties in the Eastern neighbourhood. At present there is hardly any literature on cooperation between national parties and Europarties. Second, the study is particularly important because there is relatively little written on political parties in the post-Soviet countries. Third, there is hardly any comparative literature on political parties across the post-Soviet space because most academic literature deals with single countries. The author therefore faced the formidable challenge of simultaneously researching parties themselves in order to gain an insight into the extent to which their cooperation with the Europarties impacted on them and how the impact differed across the countries, thereby developing comparative insights. In doing so, the book delivers on its promise to provide “cross-national, cross-partisan and cross-dimensional perspectives”. This is a new research pathway in European Studies as it analyses “Europeanisation beyond enlargement” with a new set of EU and domestic actors.

Rather than a “blanket” change, the study can observe gradual forms of change in the process of selective and strategic engagement of domestic actors with external actors leads to a non-systemic impact. These complex modalities of change pose a considerable challenge for gauging the actual extent of, and mechanisms accounting for, “Europeanisation beyond enlargement”. Cooperation with Europarties seems to enhance domestic processes but cannot compensate for the weakness of the domestic parties and volatility of the party system as such.

This book encompasses a great deal of research and delivers a set of strong and well-documented findings. To her credit, Maria Shagina does not shy away from a full recognition of the complexity of the findings and embraces it with a scholarly scrutiny. This is an ambitious, extensive and original study, which—despite or rather its sobering findings—pushes the frontiers of the debates on Europeanisation.

Kataryna Wolczuk

University of Birmingham, May 2017

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors Prof. Dr. Sandra Lavenex and Prof. Kataryna Wolczuk for their continuous support, patient guidance, and useful critiques. Without their enthusiastic encouragement and constructive comments, this research work would not be the same.

My sincere thanks also goes to Prof. Dr. Frank Schimmelfennig, Prof. Lars Svåsand, Prof. Dr. Daniel Bochsler, Dr. Thomas Winzen, Dr. Tim Haughton, and Prof. Dr. Dirk Lehmkuhl for their insightful and fruitful feedback at different stages of my research work, but also for their critical questions which motivated me to look at my thesis from different perspectives and to further enhance it.

I also would like to extend my thanks to the research committee of the University of Lucerne for believing in my research and for granting me a Doc.Mobility scholarship for my research stay at the University of Birmingham. Equally, I would like to thank the Graduate School of Lucerne and NCCR Democracy for the financial support. Without their generous support it would not be possible to conduct my field research.

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the CREES team for their warm welcome and engaging discussions. This research also would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many people in Belgium, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine those who helped me with arranging interviews and those who found time to share their thoughts during the interviews. My special thanks go to my family and friends for their endless support and patience through the process of researching and writing this thesis. In particular, I am thankful to Julia, Myriam, Nino, Valeriya, and to my mother Valentina and my husband David for their continuous encouragement and help.

Maria Shagina

Lucerne, May 2017

1. Introduction

In 2003, a new framework for relations with Eastern and Southern European Union’s (EU) neighbours was developed by the European Commission. Reflected in Prodi’s speech “A Wider Europe—A Proximity Policy as the key to stability”, the initiative aimed to develop a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood, offering “everything but institutions”.1 Promising no EU membership perspective, in return, the EU has offered an attractive and effective framework for closer co-operation with its neighbouring countries. In its attempt to become “a real global player”2, the EU provided new opportunities for stable and sustainable political and economic environment. The “wider Europe” initiative emphasized the importance of mutual interests existing between the EU and its neighbours and the need for sharing common values. Aimed at the promotion of the EU values beyond the Union’s borders, the new framework claimed that the scope of EU impact is not necessarily limited to the EU member states and can also take place beyond the EU borders.

Being a gravity model of democracy promotion, the EU and its institutions provide a credible blueprint for transformations for its neighbouring countries. One of the avenues through which the EU norms and values are channelled is the Europarties. Being umbrella organisations at the EU level, the Europarties provide a template for the European party-building for immature post-communist parties. Based on the evidence from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, the Europarties had a substantial impact on CEE parties by providing ideological and material support.3 Whereas the Europarties had rather a limited impact on party systems in established democracies4, their involvement in new democracies proved to be more pronounced.5 Cultural and historical rapprochement to Europe (i.e. “return to Europe” narrative) facilitated the penetration of the EU impact into the domestic arena, by demonstrating dynamics and responsiveness. For example, the Slovakian case showed that transnational links contributed to democratic consolidation and party system stabilisation. In the process of interaction with the Europarties, the Slovak parties experienced programmatic influence and reinforced their party identities, which led to the gradual standardisation of the political spectrum. Staying under a European observation, the Slovak democratic forces benefited from external solidarity and democracy-building, competing against the Mečiar government. Furthermore, the Slovak elites used transnational links as a platform for networking and unofficial lobbying in favour of EU accession.6

Whereas in CEE countries the cooperation with the Europarties took place under the mechanism of conditionality—the EU membership perspective, the interaction between the Europarties and East European parties from non-candidate countries is deprived of this leverage. However, despite the lack of EU membership perspective, these countries have high aspirations for European integration, while the non-EU parties are willing to initiate cooperation and actively participate in the Europarties’ joint activities. In fact, the affi-liation with the Europarties is often seen by Georgian, Moldovan, and Ukrai-nian parties as an opportunity to be accepted among European party elites and, therefore, is perceived as joining a prestigious club.7

This factor of prestige makes parties more exposed to the Europarties’ influences, what could potentially lead to a more discernible impact on their party development. As a result of their interaction, which occurs through institutionalised programs of mutual visits, joint seminars, training, and political consulting, the non-EU party elites become exposed to the Europarties’ norms and values, gradually absorbing the EU rules and practices. During this process of socialisation, the Europarties have the potential to “teach” the non-EU party elites the EU rules and norms, whereas the non-EU parties have an opportunity to adjust their party manifestos, approximate their organisational structure, and alter their political behavior in line with European party-building.

Driven by shifting the focus from CEE countries to non-EU countries, this research tackles the phenomenon of cooperation in which immediate tangible rewards are absent. It is the absence of rewards for both parties that makes their cooperation so perplexing. On the one hand, the Europarties do not obtain any additional votes in the European Parliament (EP), by incorporating newcomers from the non-EU member states. On the other hand, the non-EU parties are deprived of votes and initiative rights and have no influence within the Europarties’ decision-making bodies, which makes their cooperation limited. Nevertheless, the non-EU parties willingly initiate the cooperation and participate in the Europarties’ activities, whereas the Europarties compete in their network expansion and are eager to have sister parties outside of Europe.

Research questions

The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of cooperation on party development in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine through an affiliation with the Europarties. Applying the socialisation approach, there are two main research questions to be answered: what are the incentives for the Europarties and the non-EU parties to cooperate with each other? and what impact does cooperation with the Europarties have on party development in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine?

Looking at cooperation with the Europarties, the first research question aims to envisage the rationale that drives this cooperation. Applying both the “logic of consequences” and the “logic of appropriateness”, the research examines the incentive structures of both the Europarties and the non-EU parties.

The second research question aims to shed some light on the causal mechanism of this puzzling cooperation and explain the “black box” of the Europarties’ impact on party development. It aims to examine whether there is an impact and, if yes, to what extent cooperation with the Europarties impacts non-EU party development. The research is interested in identifying “the cogs and wheels” of cooperation that trigger the process of socialisation and transformational changes. The Europarties’ impact is analysed in terms of ideological, organisational, and behavioural changes. Dealing with EU outsiders, the research is driven by looking at different faces of Europeanisation, not necessarily positive ones.

The main implications of this contribution are to analyse whether this cooperation leads to transformations in party-building and whether these reforms lead to transformations on the party system level. The decrease in ideological polarisation, increase in organisational capacity, and stability of inter-party relationships might spill over into the party system level and lead to its stabilisation, consolidation, and democratisation. In this way, the research aims to contribute to the nascent studies of Europeanisation beyond Europe and to conduct systematic cross-country, cross-partisan, and cross-dimensional comparisons of the Europarties’ influence on domestic parties outside of the EU.

Europeanisation of party politics: locating the research

In a broader context, this research is deeply embedded in the realm of democracy promotion and particularly into the field of international party assistance.8 The point of departure of this research is, however, the Europeanisation of party politics. In his seminal work, Ladrech conceptualised a theoretical framework for the analysis of the Europeanisation of political parties.9 The Europeanisation was defined through five dimensions, namely party programmes, organisational structure, patterns of party competition, party–government relations, and relations beyond the national party system. Following his analytical framework, various studies have examined some of those dimensions.10

Overall, the EU’s direct impact on the format and mechanics of Western party systems was rather limited, as there was no effect on domestic party competition. The explanation for this insignificant impact is rooted in the underdeveloped character of the European party system. The European-level elections still remain second-order elections, with blurred and weak party competition that prevents the spill-over effect into the national arena.11 Moreover, national party systems operate as gatekeepers and define electoral agendas. Finally, the national and European political arenas are strictly divided along policy issues. While national politics seems to be the arena for contestation over European issues, European politics is becoming a playground for day-to-day decision-making.12

Focusing on CEE and Balkan countries, a series of studies were conducted, analysing the Europeanisation of party politics, including the influence of the Europarties on their member parties. The findings vary, depending on the assessment of the degree of Europeanisation. While some studies find a substantial impact on domestic party politics, other literature claims EU influences had no impact. The first strand of literature establishes that domestic party politics underwent significant changes under the EU impact. Thus, in his pivotal study, Pridham finds the evidence of the impact on CEE party systems after cooperation with transnational party federations. Aspiring to join the EU, unsettled CEE party systems were exposed to systemic pressure and underwent transformations on different levels such as “identity and ideology, programme, organisation, electoral politics and personnel”.13 Cooperation with transnational actors had several observable results. Firstly, cooperating with “standard” parties only, a line of demarcation was drawn by the Europarties to exclude extremist and nationalist parties. As a result, it led to standardisation of the CEE political spectrum. Secondly, lacking experience and self-confidence, the European links helped CEE parties build up political and electoral experience by boosting the party elites’ confidence. Finally, cooperation was employed by non-EU parties as an unofficial channel for networking to speed up the EU accession process.14

In the same vein, Delsoldato argued that transnational party cooperation influenced EU candidate countries’ parties. The Europarties impacted post-communist parties by transferring their own models of organisation, action, and thinking.15 Moreover, the Europarties operated as interlocutors between domestic and European levels to build personal trust. However, due to the lack of knowledge about post-communist parties, the process of affiliation quickly started to turn into a superficial affiliation rather than a close ideological match in which the larger parties were easily recognised.16 Dakowska’s research corroborated the abovementioned observations. It found out that, driven by rational calculations, CEE parties opted for the larger and more powerful Europarties in order to achieve international recognition, domestic legitimacy, and social proof. On the other hand, facing the realities of a post-communist landscape, the Europarties lowered their expectations for close ideological matches and favoured the admission of stronger parties in order to improve their bargaining power once the enlargement was finalised.17 The German party foundations played a crucial role in the intermediation, socialisation, and persuasion of post-communist parties. Operating as “norm entrepreneurs”, they proved to be the channels for transmitting norms, values, and political contacts to CEE countries. Nevertheless, although some CEE parties adopted general discourses of European values, norm transfer via the Europarties proved to be rather intricate.18

Similarly, Lewis detected particular transformations in government coalitions, party-system structure, and party organisations. In line with Pridham, he observed a tendency towards the marginalisation of radical parties and its subsequent moderation in CEE countries, resulting in the changes in coalition formats. The mainstream parties tended to exclude extremist parties from the coalition-building process. In particular, the Slovak case was the most illustrative, when the Party of European Socialists (PES) used its leverage to affect the coalition format by excluding extremist and EU-noncompatible “Movement for a Democratic Slovakia” (HZDS) from their family. The HZDS underwent significant changes to be considered compatible for the PES again. Although it is difficult to identify any profound impact on the consolidation of CEE party systems, as a result of the EU’s adaptive pressure, domestic parties became limited in their exploitation of populism. Secondly, the EU’s impact on party ideology and party organisation found its evidence in terms of the introduction of gender quotas, adoption of the European party symbols and alternation of party names.19

Likewise, Spirova found evidence of the Europarties’ impact on domestic electoral strategies in Bulgaria through the Europarties’ encouragement of forging alliances and mergers. For example, the PES actively supported the creation of a new, leftist force—the Bulgarian European Left (BEL). However, observing how the BEL was gradually losing their popularity, the PES opted for the consolidation of Bulgarian social-democratic forces. The main driving force behind the engagement of the PES was electoral support rather than ideology. Due to the strong personalisation of Bulgarian party politics, the consolidation of left forces failed. In a similar case, the European People’s Party (EPP) made an attempt to encourage the unification of the Bulgarian right, but also failed to achieve any success. In fact, the Europarties’ encouragement for consolidation sometimes led to friction within the party, proving the Europarties’ impact to be rather counterproductive.20